June is turning into a whirlwind month for me and mine. We traveled to northern Iowa on Memorial Day weekend and then I had to smack dab go out of town on business. I got home and then The Hubs had to travel (as I again had to go out of town as well). Have two more weeks of meetings out of town and then hopefully July will be a bit calmer. Wait and see….
To start, I’ll reference again our trip to Iowa. Mom put together a surprise mystery tour for Sis and me and she would not up any hints. We ended up in Hazelton, home to a large Amish community. We started at an Amish bakery where we snacked on delicious kolaches.
Then, off we marched to all the Amish stores. Each store seemed to be a bit specialized in what was stocked: plants, baking supplies (in bulk), candy and cake making supplies, surplus food.
I didn’t buy any plants because we were traveling, but they were quite glorious. I did purchase some pectin (in bulk), some smoked paprika, ground cumin, and this blast from the past:
If you’ve never heard of Horehound candy, you never visited my grandmother. She always had these lozenge-like candies in her candy dish along with lemon drops. Unfortunately, the Oklahoma humidity always melded the two flavors together. So, if you wanted a delicious lemon drop, you generally had to take a horehound along with it. I had to buy these and see if they were as hideous as my childhood memories. My sister spit hers out immediately. Personally, I didn’t think they were quite as bad as I remember.
Previous to all our traveling, we went to one of the first farmers markets of the season and we bought greens and radishes. I also bought some more kombucha from Jared’s Kombucha:One is a lemon grass kombucha and the other is a berry vanilla one. Delish!
We also bought some of this locally made grilling cheese.
There’s some great recipes at their site. We haven’t tried it yet but I have a plan.
Finally, there’s the garden. There will be no pictures because it is extremely weedy. 🙁 But look at what it is producing!
My favorite way to eat them—sliced with just a bit of Himalayan sea salt and fresh pepper.
I’ll leave you with a simple yet delicious salad that I mixed up for a quick dinner after one of our marathon road trips: Strawberry and Cherry Tomato Bruschetta Salad.
Just toss the tomatoes, sliced strawberries, fresh basil with good olive oil and a splash of balsamic. Season with fresh ground pepper. Enjoy! (Linking the salad portion of this post up with Deb’s Souper Sunday.)
I’m linking up with Sherry’s Pickings.
oh lovely tomatoes there. is hellim like halloumi? great for frying. so kombucha is all the rage there too?:) thanks for joining in IMK. As you may have read on my post, there are problems with the new Data protection rules, which are causing stuff ups with comments etc. hopefully blogger will fix them soon. cheers sherry
Tomatoes! Such a beautiful fruit, and it’s neat that you are using them with strawberries. I remember a family friend who grew up on a farm in Colorado in the early 20th century, who said his family ate tomatoes with cream and sugar: Fruit! I hope you have a beautiful June.
best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I haven’t had — or thought about! — Horehound candy for decades! Not something I’ve had that often (not easy to find), but always a treat. Anyway, such terrific stuff to share this month — thanks.
Oh yeah, we had horehound candies when we visited Amish country too. Growing up near Philly we regularly took that 45 minute ride to Lancaster and there abouts. Didn’t like it as a kid, the candy was too harsh then, to my palate.
What a nice trip you had, sounds fun.
Mmmmm….fresh tomatoes!
Never heard of Horehound candy… that is what I love about the IMK community. The tomatoes look gorgeous and so special when picked from your own garden 🙂
Sounds like such a fun trip! Your salad looks delicious–especially with those gorgeous tomatoes! Thanks for sharing it with Souper Sundays this week.
When you get a minute, can you please add the mention & link to Souper Sundays on this post. Mahalo!
My bad. Absolutely, will take care of that now!
Strawberries and tomato together – what a wonderful idea! The trip looks very fun, I’ve heard such good things about Amish cooking! Everything looks so fresh and delicious.
Sounds like a perfect trip. I have never heard of Horehound candy before now. And I too love tomatoes just with a touch of salt 🙂